


A Touch of Brightness

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Fluff, Other, ThoscheiLockdown2020, ThoscheiTreatLockdown2020, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: Missy’s lips quirk upward in faint amusement. “I’m discussing you wearing your own lipstick, not you wearing the sad castoffs of other people’s lipstick, though it is enormously fitting that you’re still the sort to kiss and tell.” She inhales sharply, eyes turning skyward. “Wasn’t there that time at the Academy when you stood up in front of our entire cohort to declare your conquests simply because someone needled you about them?”“You needled me about them.” The correction is filed to a neat point, and Missy can see the Doctor’s knuckles go white as they tug on a lever.“Did I? I suppose I must’ve. Can’t keep track of things these days. It all has a habit of slip-sliding away.” The thought ends in a song, bright and taunting.Missy offers the Doctor a lesson in lipstick. Response to the prompt "13/missy soft" for the Thoschei Lockdown exchange.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44
Collections: Thoschei Lockdown The First 2020





	A Touch of Brightness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bossxtweed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/gifts).



Missy has taken to lounging around the TARDIS control room. It began as a largely inoffensive practice, relegated to the existing seating in the control room, however, it has become increasingly obtrusive over the past several weeks. She started pulling chairs from other rooms, setting them up in series so that she might be allowed to theatrically drape herself across them, skirts pulled up just high enough that she might bait the Doctor into staring at her ankles. When chairs became dull, she began finding other furniture appropriate for lounging -- old armchairs, a reclaimed pew from some long-forgotten cathedral, a wrought iron park bench. At one point, she escalated to dragging an entire bunk bed across the ship so that she might be able to both lounge and claim the high ground, but a bit of turbulence proved that it was, perhaps, a poor notion.    
  
On this particular day, she has laid claim to a pink and extraordinarily luxurious fainting couch from which she observes the Doctor through half-lidded eyes. Missy quite likes this face -- all blonde and soft and easy to fluster -- however, she does not appreciate it's irritating tendency to ignore her presence. What good is inserting herself in the Doctor’s space if she is simply going to be brushed aside at every possible turn in favor of adventures and humans and fiddling with controls that the poor dear barely even knows how to use?    
  
“Have you considered lipstick?” Missy floats the question across the room with airy, feigned disinterest, as if she, too, is bored of the other’s presence. “It would go a great way into brightening up whatever --” She pauses, fingers sweeping a half-circle through the air before drawing together into a single point, “--  _ this _ is.”   
  
The Doctor’s eyes flick upward, expression flickering between confusion and defensiveness as her parted lips consider how best to reply.    
  
Missy merely waits, offering the Doctor a needlessly toothy smile. On any other face, it might have read as almost coy, but she can’t seem to do anything to soften these angles. She doesn’t mind; she finds great joy in knocking others off-balance.    
  
“Bit useless, isn’t it? All it does is smudge and transfer and end up in places you don’t want it to be. And it tastes horrible, half the time.” The Doctor’s tongue sweeps across her lips, recalling a hundred kisses and a few dozen telltale stains.    
  
Missy’s lips quirk upward in faint amusement. “I’m discussing you wearing  _ your own _ lipstick, not you wearing the sad castoffs of  _ other people’s _ lipstick, though it is enormously fitting that you’re still the sort to kiss and tell.” She inhales sharply, eyes turning skyward. “Wasn’t there that time at the Academy when you stood up in front of our  _ entire _ cohort to declare your conquests simply because someone needled you about them?”    
  
“ _ You _ needled me about them.” The correction is filed to a neat point, and Missy can see the Doctor’s knuckles go white as they tug on a lever.    
  
“Did I? I suppose I must’ve. Can’t keep track of things these days. It all has a habit of  _ slip-sliding away _ .” The thought ends in a song, bright and taunting. Missy gives it a moment to echo before tugging the conversation back towards her first thought. “Have you so much as tried to apply it?”    
  
“Not recently.” The Doctor disappears behind a column, purposefully placing herself out of Missy’s line of sight.    
  
“I could help you.”   
  
A blonde head pops out from behind the corner just long enough to scrunch her nose in quiet distaste. “I’d rather not.”   
  
“You’re never any  _ fun _ .”    
  
“I’m very fun, thank you very much. It’s just that your type of fun is lipstick and murder and my type of fun is … is ….” The Doctor stumbles as she searches for the right descriptor. Happiness has been a fragile thing lately, and without happiness, it’s difficult to summon her sense of fun, nonetheless define it. In the end, she settles for a vague sense of opposition. “-- is  _ not _ that.”   
  
“How do you know? You’ve never tried it.” In a swirl of purple skirts, Missy rises to her feet, reaching out both of her hands to her friend with a small pout. “Come on and live a little, Doctor. It’s not going to kill you.”    
  
Green eyes roll towards the ceiling. “ _ Fine _ .” The Doctor gives in not because Missy won, but because she knows that there is no force in this universe or any other strong enough to make her wear lipstick on an everyday basis. There’s too much to do, too much to see, and grooming gets in the way. She barely even does laundry.    
  
Missy leans forward, sweeping up the Doctor’s hands in her own with a purr. “Good girl.”    
  
A flush creeps across the Doctor’s neck. Missy pretends not to notice it as she leads her best friend and worst enemy across the room and deposits her on the fainting couch.    
  
“Now, let’s see,” Missy says, making a great show of patting her pockets. She surfaces with not one, but three tubes of lipstick stashed in various pouches and folds. When the Doctor meets her with raised eyebrows, she merely replies, “It’s uncivilized to not reapply.”   
  
One by one, she uncaps and rolls up the lipsticks, searching for a particular shade. They’re all variations on red, since that is the color that she personally prefers -- blood of her enemies and all that -- but undertones are a terribly finicky thing. As funny as it might be to paint the Doctor up like a clown, it would be contrary to her goals.    
  
Eventually, she settles on a color and sinks into a spot on the couch, making a great show of draping her legs across the Doctor’s lap. Much to her disappointment, the Doctor makes no comment about it. Rude of her, really. Missy will simply have to try harder.    
  
She reaches out a single hand to grasp the Doctor’s chin and rotate it in her direction. “Relax your mouth. You’re not a fish.”    
  
“Could be a fish. Probably easier to be a fish. Fish don’t bother with this,” the Doctor mumbles. However, after a moment’s pause, she obliges.    
  
Missy leans forward, concentrating intently as she swipes the lipstick over the Doctor’s lips. Her other hand continues to linger on her old friend’s chin, holding it fast lest she be tempted to wriggle away and run back across the room. It takes a couple passes to get it right -- it is far harder to apply makeup on another person’s face than it is to apply it to your own -- but when she’s finally content, she lets go and snaps the cap back onto the tube.    
  
“Now blot.”   
  
“Now  _ what _ ?”    
  
A weary sigh slips past her tongue. “Press your lips together.”   
  
Content with her work, Missy swings her legs back onto the floor so that the Doctor might be able to hunt down her reflection. It does not take long. TARDIS consoles almost always have a suitable mirror lying about, even in desktop arrangements as peculiar as this one’s. From where she is seeing, she can see the wariness give way to something that almost resembles pleased satisfaction.    
  
A bit of lipstick really does brighten things up.    
  
Maybe tomorrow they’ll learn about the wonders of mascara on a vintage settee. 


End file.
